>I don't think getting a college education in return is cheap. A college education can change a person’s life. If I didn't have one I don't think I would be where I'm at. Instead I would most likely be working a long side my dad at welding and not making a lot of money.

Cheap is defined against one's pocket. While being a huge thing for the one who risks his life for a number of years, it's way below the accounting margin of error of the budget where the money comes from. Even NASA's budget, I once heard, is smaller than the tolerable accounting error in military budget.

Or... does anyone have good statistics on total tuition money paid versus Halliburton's net profits from defense contracts? Or versus the few trillion bucks unaccounted for in the DoD?